NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="EricNoah" data-source="post: 2292979" data-attributes="member: 4">Monte, you may be in the unique position of being the person who knows the D&D better than nearly anyone ever.  That might make the need for consistent stat blocks unimportant to you.  But I agree with those who argue for consistency.  As a DM, I'm juggling a ton of information; the less I have to hunt around for info, the faster the game goes.  I do think there might be room for a type of reduced stat block; instead of a "Feats" line it would be "Relevant Feats" and instead of "Skills" it might be "Relevant Skills."  Same with SAs, SQs, Equipment/Gear, etc.  Heck, you could eliminate listing any ability score that is not particularly low or high and that would be ok by me.  Though again with ability damage coming in so many forms perhaps it is best to have all six stats listed... I think in modern, full-color publishing the publishers should make good use of color to catch the eye.  When I type up my own stat blocks in my adventures, I put everything important in colored text.  AC is always red because it's the one thing I can never seem to find when I need it.  Immunities and resistances are called out in purple or some other color so I can see them.  The Dungeon stat format helps get the defense-related stuff and the offense related stuff into coherent chunks and I like that.  I also like anything that keeps me from having to flip open a rulebook during the game (for me, rulebooks are what I use during prep, not what I use during the game).  I want monster and character stats spelled out to a certain degree, I ideally want relevant spell info pre-calculated (save DCs, damage, etc.).  Same with magic items, traps, etc. What chaps my hide is when the text takes the space to say "see the DMG for more information" or "works just like the XYZ spell in the PHB" when in just about the same amount of space they could just say what the darned thing does.</blockquote>

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